Camelot Rise Primary School Newsletter

From the Principal 

NAPLAN Achievements: 

 

Our 2023 NAPLAN achievements are a product of the hard work of every teacher and staff member in our school. Just as our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) meet weekly to collaborate for the benefit of the students, the School Improvement Team (SIT) meet regularly to ensure the effective function of the school and consider whole school improvement. With leaders and teachers planning and problem-solving together we bring a breadth of discussion and ideas. 

 

In receiving our NAPLAN results this week our School Improvement Team (Miss Lonsdale, Miss Jacobs, Mr Judkins, Mrs Yoong, Mrs Giannopoulos, Mr Heys and myself) will be analysing these results to look for areas of strength as well as any gaps in our curriculum delivery. We will also use school-based data sets to identify whether the NAPLAN reports correlate with other formative assessments and our teacher judgement.

 

NAPLAN is Australia’s only standardised testing, and given it happens once every two years for each child from Years 3 - 9, it is simply a snapshot in time; in some cases, students do exceedingly well, in others, they may underperform on the day. 

 

The new standards for NAPLAN reporting are aimed to provide simple and clear information for parents and carers about whether their child is where they need to be in the development of their literacy and numeracy skills: 

  • Exceeding: the student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing.
  • Strong: the result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing. 
  • Developing: indicates that the student is working towards expectations at the time of testing.
  • Needs additional support: the student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes expected at the time of testing. 

We celebrate our results. They reflect the highest quality teaching and evidence-based practice that we implement at our school. Our students are challenged by a differentiated curriculum in each classroom where we meet the specific learning needs of all students.

 

We are very proud of our school and our recent NAPLAN achievements, and we continue to strive to ensure we continue to improve every year.

 

2023 Parent-Carer-Guardian Opinion Survey:

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents, caregivers and guardians think of our school. This Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage all families to participate. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. All families are invited to participate in the survey.

 

The Parent-Caregiver-Guardian-Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 7th August to Friday 8th September 2023. The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

 

Each year, we encourage our students, families and staff to provide agency in our school. We use this feedback to celebrate achievements and importantly direct improvement cycles and future planning. We hope you can support us with these ambitions. Further information will be circulated via Compass.

 

 

Friday, 18th August, Pupil-free Day – Curriculum Day 

Friday, 18th August will be a Curriculum Day (Student Free day at Camelot Rise Primary School). Our Camp Australia Out of School Hours Care program will be operating. You will need to book in with Camp Australia if you would like to access the program. 

 

Staffing Challenges - Many schools across Australia are experiencing the effects of a nationwide teacher shortage. I heard of a school in Victoria that is looking for twenty-five teachers. As you could imagine, this shortage has an impact on replacement teachers (teachers who come in daily – often called CRT’s, to replace staff who are away/sick etc). As such, if we have staff away, we take immediate steps to ‘book’ the CRT’s in for the days and dates we know. And although we get in early, sometimes these CRT’s get sick… and you can imagine how complex this situation gets. 

 

We can assure you, that everything possible is done to get CRT’s and if it involves multiple days – we ‘try’ and get the same person. Thanks to Ben Heys (Assistant Principal) who is in the thick of these challenging times, working so incredibly well to make this happen as best possible, every day, from 6:00am in the morning, and often again in the evenings.

 

Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee

Registrations for the 2023 Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee are now open! The PM’s Spelling Bee is a free online competition for Australian school students in Years 3 to 8.Spelling bees are a lot of fun, and they have wider benefits like helping kids develop confidence and a real love of words and language. The competition consists of three age categories, years 3–4, years 5–6 and years 7–8.Students are required to spell 30 words and have 25 seconds to spell each word. Each student is ranked according to the accuracy of their spelling, and the time taken to spell each word. Registration and the School Rounds close at 5:00pm (AEST) on Friday, 18 August 2023.Please find below the link to access the parental consent form for the 2023 Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee:https://www.spelling-bee.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/spelling-bee-consent-form-2023.pdf Please email this form completed with all relevant details to Mr Young as soon as possible: Christopher.Young@education.vic.gov.auPlease remember that the first stage of the competition is to be completed by Friday August 18, outside of school hours and under supervision from parents/carers.

 

Good luck to our students that will participate in this competition.

Thanks to Mr Young for coordinating this event.

 

School Wide Positive Behaviours (SWPBS)

As part of our current Strategic Plan we will continue to implement our School Wide Positive Behaviour Program. This program will bolster the wonderful well-being programs of Camelot Rise Primary School. With a view to improving student confidence, resilience, self-regulation, and peer connection our SWPSBS team have been working on several initiatives to further bolster the wellbeing of students, staff and parents at CRPS. These include but are not limited to;

  • Buddies Reform 
  • Tiered Intervention Framework- Student, Parent and Teachers 
  • School Wide Positive Behaviour Support Framework 
  • Alignment with vision, values, learning dispositions and actions. 

School wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is a framework for creating safe and orderly learning environments in schools, while improving the social-emotional outcomes for students. It is a proactive approach that relies on research-based practices, including developing clear behavioural expectations, teaching these expectations, acknowledging appropriate behaviour, consistently correcting inappropriate behaviour, and using behavioural data to systematically solve problems.

 

The School-wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS) framework aims to:

  • bring together school communities to develop positive, safe, supportive learning cultures.
  • assist schools to improve social, emotional, behavioural, and academic outcomes for children and young people.

Students and staff benefit from:

  • increased respectful and positive behaviour
  • increased time focused on instruction
  • improved social-emotional wellbeing
  • positive and respectful relationships among students and staff
  • increased adoption of evidence-based instructional practices
  • a predictable learning environment with improved perceptions of safety and increased attendance.

Our acceptance into this program is another way that we are supporting our students to be the best they can be and further demonstration of our commitment to our improvement agenda and alignment of Student Wellbeing and learning that exists in DE's revised Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO 2.0). 

 

 

 

Planning for 2024 -Are you leaving CRPS in 2023?

We ask that you let us know if you are moving or have enrolled to another school in 2024. We require this information as soon as possible to establish grade structures for the start of the new school year. If your child is currently in Foundation – Year 5 and will not be at Camelot Rise in 2024, please notify the school office in writing or by email as soon as possible. 

 

Christmas Concert

Please put the date of Thursday, 14th December into your calendars for our Christmas Concert. We are thrilled that we can again host these wonderful community events. More information about this night will be shared with the community over the upcoming months.

 

We look forward to a great night.

 

APPA Conference 

Matt is currently attending the Australian Primary Principal’s Association Conference in Hobart from Sunday 30th July to Wednesday 2nd August. The conference will be focused on the theme of ‘Refreshing Leadership and Inspiring Futures’ and will feature rich professional learning and collaboration opportunities for educational leaders in primary schools across the nation.

 

Matthew Coney and Ben Heys